Industrial Zones Oversight Committee

CITY OF NORWALK Industrial Zones Oversight Committee January 12, 2021 *MINUTES* AGENDA I. PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS II. SURVEY RESULTS III. NEXT STEPS IV. PUBLIC COMMENT V. ADJOURNMENT PRESENT: Tammy Langalis, Richard Roina, Darlene Young, Louis Schulman, John Kydes STAFF: Steve Kleppin, Amelia Williams, Sabrina Church OTHERS: Maggie Tsang; Tim Love; Will Cohen; Diane Lauricella The meeting began at 4:07 PM. It should be noted that this meeting was held on Zoom. I. PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS Maggie Tsang began by discussing the Industrial Zones Study. She said they would discuss the engagement process and what the next steps would be through that process. She showed them where they were in the process. They are in the community outreach phase in the last couple of months. They had reached out to industrial businesses as well as to Norwalk residents through a survey. Tim Love noted that the consultant team was getting up to speed and prioritize. He noted that there are a couple of ways to tackle the outreach. Ms. Tsang said that in-depth interviews had been done with industrial business owners and showed them a list of those they had conversations with. She discussed the major themes of those conversations which included trends, e-commerce and warehouses, the regional position of Norwalk. Industrial Zones Oversight Committee January 12, 2021 Page 1 II. SURVEY RESULTS Will Cohen then discussed the survey results which showed that a good number of people responded and voted. They had not collected too much demographic information so they were not sure where the responses had come from. Some respondents were from business owners who owned or rented in the city. There was also a discussion about the consensus topics and divisive topics. There were different opinion groups that Mr. Cohen discussed. He also discussed the consensus statements which included traffic issues, heavy industry vs. light industry etc. III. NEXT STEPS Ms. Tsang explained the next steps which included Norwalk’s regional position, industrial trends, Norwalk’s waterfront, and industrial uses and their relationship to other uses. She then explained what the consulting team would do to move these steps forward. At this time, the members added their own comments. There was a discussion about whether Norwalk had the infrastructure to become the industrial district for all of Fairfield County. There was also a discussion about whether Bridgeport was the center. Ms. Church also noted that it should be shown whether the market would support it. Ms. Tsang discussed the tasks that would need to be done to see whether Norwalk is well-positioned to be the regional center. Ms. Tsang then discussed the next tasks for defining the emerging industrial trends and the future of industry. Some industries have definite space requirements. She then discussed the Norwalk waterfront and what it should look like in the future. Lastly she discussed industrial uses and their relationship to other uses. One thing they would study would be where the industrial uses would have the least amount of impact on residential areas. At this point, the committee members were asked if they had further questions but they did not. Mr. Kleppin noted that the consultants would come up with recommendations. Mr. Love said they would do more analysis and assessments before they could make those recommendations. There was a discussion about upzoning and incentives for them. There was also a discussion about grandfathering for businesses, especially in South Norwalk. There was also a discussion about text change codes in the city’s regulations. There was a discussion about calling some districts “mixed use” districts and what that would mean. Mr. Love noted that they would still have to do more analysis about what that would look like. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Diane Lauricella noted that there is a stigma to industrial zones in the city. She gave an example from the 1980s and discussed how it had affected the South Norwalk neighborhood. There were no other comments from the public. Industrial Zones Oversight Committee January 12, 2021 Page 2  The committee then discussed when the next meeting would be. V. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 PM. Respectfully submitted, Diana Palmentiero Industrial Zones Oversight Committee January 12, 2021 Page 3